by: Jonathan Greenblatt | April 06, 2020 The Times of Israel As the Jewish community prepares for Passover under quarantine, I’m reflecting on how this moment is so profoundly difficult for so many Jewish families as we head into the holidays. The coronavirus pandemic has not only upended the lives and livelihoods of people everywhere, but it is going to have a profound effect on Jewish families preparing for the celebration of Passover, which begins on the night of Wednesday, April…

Remarks, as delivered, to the NAACP Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas July 16, 2018 Remarks as delivered Thank you, Gary, and good morning, NAACP! It is so great for me to be here with you today.  You know, two months ago, my friend –  and your President and CEO –  Derrick Johnson, addressed the Anti-Defamation League at our National Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. in a room a lot like this. And in a speech no one on our side will soon forget,…

by: Jonathan A. Greenblatt | February 09, 2017 Your Holiness, This week, in synagogues all over the world, Jews will read Shirat Ha-yam, the “Song of the Sea” from the book of Exodus that Miriam, Moses and the Israelites sang after they miraculously passed through the Sea of Reeds on dry land. As a newly free people, they expressed their thanks to God for their redemption, saying: Who is like you, o eternal, among the…

by: Rabbi David Sandmel | June 05, 2016 The Times of Israel The General Conference of United Methodist Church recently concluded its quadrennial gathering, which this year was held in Portland, Oregon. I and many others in the Jewish community, not to mention many Christians as well, were pleased with the outcome of a number of votes on resolutions concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Inter alia, the Church rejected resolutions calling for divestment or for investment screens…

by: Jonathan A. Greenblatt | October 27, 2015 PBS - Religion & Ethics Newsweekly The promulgation, on October 28, 1965, of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Church’s Relations with Non-Christian Religions, may be the most important moment is post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian relations and interfaith relations writ large. In its fourth chapter, Nostra Aetate effectively overturned centuries of what the noted French Jewish historian…

by: Abraham H. Foxman | February 26, 2014 The Huffington Post   Ten years ago, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" film was released amid a swirl of controversy and after a relentless public relations campaign playing up the director's celebrity status and his adamant refusal to change the film amid concerns of insensitivity and anti-Semitism. Gibson's "Passion" was a passion of hate. His film bought into all of the troubling representations of the Passion that fortified church-based…

July 12, 2013 The Anti-Defamation League commends the International Council of Christian and Jews (ICCJ) for its comprehensive statement about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which calls on religious institutions and groups to refrain from issuing one-sided declarations in attempting to promote a resolution to the dispute.  The statement by ICCJ, one of the world’s oldest and most respected international Christian-Jewish organizations, urges religious bodies and leaders to recommit…

by: By Abraham H. Foxman | April 18, 2013 The Huffington Post One of the first things Argentinian native Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio did after being elected pope on March 13 was to send a message of friendship to Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni -- and, by extension, the Jewish people. "I sincerely hope to be able to contribute to the progress that relations between Jews and Catholics have enjoyed since the Second Vatican Council," wrote Cardinal Bergoglio, who took the name Pope Francis…

January 02, 2013 Q. What is the basis for ADL's concerns about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"?A. We first learned about Mr. Gibson's plans to make a film based on the final hours of Jesus' life in a New York Times Magazine article that appeared in February 2003. An early version of the script was shared with us. In August 2003, an ADL representative saw a rough cut in Houston. On January 21, we saw a version of the film at a screening in Orlando, Florida. We had hoped to see the film…

by: Abraham H. Foxman | July 11, 2007 Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) – With anti-Semitism resurgent in the world, one of the encouraging elements for the Jewish people, particularly if one is to compare things today to the 1930s and 1940s, is the remarkable change in the Catholic Church's attitudes toward Jews. In the past four decades, a conceptual revolution has taken place in the church's relationship with the Jewish people. The first step came with Vatican II and its…